Wednesday, September 12, 2007

QWERTY*?

When I was first started to type, many years ago, I asked the same question everyone else asks, why are the keys arranged so stupidly? Why aren’t they laid out in a more logical order, as in, just to take one random example, alphabetically? (Please note that I am not a great typer, even now I search for the keys :-))


The answer I’ve heard/read countless times is that the first typewriter keyboards were arranged alphabetically, but that caused mechanical problems—once typists became reasonably proficient, the keys jammed frequently because the hammers corresponding to certain frequently used letter sequences were too close together. As a result, so the story goes, the QWERTY layout was designed to prevent jamming by moving those letters farther apart, thus slowing down the typists to a speed the machine could handle.

Did you guys know that, a more sensible and efficient layout called the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard has been around for a long time, but never became very popular because QWERTY simply had too much momentum in the marketplace. This Dvorak keyboard three flavors, for the people who use right hand, for those who use left hand and for those who use both hands for typing.
Sounds interesting right, just look at the layout of Dvorak keyboard below:
After looking at the Dvorak Keyboard, I feel our QWERTY Keyboard is much easier Or is that that we are so used to QWERTY that we do not find anything else easier? Not sure, but what I am sure is QWERTY is here to stay!!

*QWERTY are the first six letters on the conventional keyboard we use so its called so

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